Rough Draft #2
“The Day Goes Forever” “The Day Goes Forever” poem by Tom Clark talks about how the world is really busy doing its own thing and we are all “caged birds” because we are stuck in this century and we let technologies rule our lives. The title “The Day Goes Forever” in this poem gives me mixed feelings. When I first read it, I thought it was negative and the picture that came up in my mind was how the day is never ending and dragging forever. However, it also could have been positive, if you were having the best day of your life. This poem caught my eye because of the first sentence in the first verse, which is “were alone my shadow and me”. Automatically I thought about how we are trapped in this world. We are co complacent with our lives, and don’t want any changes. Tom Clark wants us to push past the isolation, fight back and open our eyes that there is a way out, we just have to find it. Also, a quote that caught my eye was by Charles Wright, “ One has to learn to leave things alone. It’s best to keep unwritten as much as possible. Poetry is just the shadow of the dog. It helps us know the dog is around, but it’s not the dog. The dog is elsewhere, and constantly on the move”. This quote made me feel that the main idea in poetry is hidden; you need to figure it out on your own in order to understand the true meaning. This could also relate to the poem I chose. The true meaning always hides behind the words, such as how environment cages us.
In the first stanza, Tom talks about that there is only you and your shadow here, and how our lives are on repeat. It made me feel trapped and isolated. It is terrifying to think that pretty much everyday is the same thing, “first song same as last song”. Do you ever get a feeling that no matter what you seem to do; you keep winding up in the same place, with the same individuals, in the same locations? Maybe you have even experienced the same feared outcomes and sensations that come with those experiences. So basically, your life is on repeat and you are stuck trapped in the same situations. Some people just accept that they did something and they still repeat it later in life. However, there are some people that learn from that mistake and choose to not repeat it. Human beings all around the world like to have habits. We love our rituals and traditions. Even though, we all have different beliefs, we end up in the same cycle. We end up trapped again. We stick to them and our beliefs because they are comforting and we feel safe.
In the second stanza, Clark is talking about nature being trapped. When he says, “the stream weeps passing under concrete”, it makes me feel tense and claustrophobic. Not only humans can be trapped, but nature as well. The technology has been trapping nature. Unfortunately technology is mostly used to isolate and distance us from nature and its less pleasant or constraining factors. When Clark says, “the earth is covered with vehicles” it just makes me feel that technology is the cause, and vehicles are not only causes, there are cell phones, Internet, computers and many more. And most of those require energy in forms of electricity, heat, nuclear materials, or whatever forms that can be used to produce energy. These energy resources are associated with nature, and by trying to extract energy from natural products, we are destroying nature. However, “it meant to secure the unknown against us”, which means even though it damages the nature, it secures our comfort, distracts us from the real world.
In the third stanza, it talks about how the world is really busy doing its own thing and we are all “caged birds” because we are stuck in this century and we let technologies rule our lives. Our environment cages us. Now it is difficult to imagine that just about fifty or a hundred years ago, mankind was not so dependent on modern technology such as computers and the Internet world. Even though we are “caged”, Tom still mentions “this place is very pretty, excellent for lunch fine for sleeping”. So no matter if we feel “caged”, we enjoy what we have. We feel secured and safe in our environment, but also lonely. Every single person has a distinctive need to socialize or interact with other humans. As much as any of us may need and value alone time, very few of us are true loners. If we don’t socialize with people, we would crave it. It is in our nature. However, there are many things that keep our loneliness somewhat enjoyable. These days, people are separated from each other. The pursuit of material wealth and social status takes away all the energy, leaving no time and effort to it to build trusting relationships with each other. Especially for large cities, where people can live for years in the neighborhood, but may not know each other. In such a huge city, where everyone has always somewhere to run and rush without hearing and unaware of one another, it takes away more and more space for love and understanding. The result is a massive alienation because of the lack of simple human interaction.
Tom also mentions how no one “thought to put in a door” which is an escape from this world. Maybe the bird doesn’t want to escape, because it is so used to being lonely, and escaping something you are so used to could be very scary and risky. Sometime it is better to be complacent with what you have then opening new doors for new choices. For example, no matter how faithful your friends and family are, everyone has their own agenda, there own mind, and everyone is ultimately looking out for himself or herself. Everyone actually does everything alone – you were born and you die alone. I liked this poem because I can relate to it. I always had to depend on myself. My parents go away for trips for months since I was a little girl. I had to stay on my own and I always knew that my “shadow” and me is all I really have. Also, moving to different places taught me a lot too. Every time we would move, I would have to make new friends and then leave them again. So I learned not to get close to people, because I would be always getting hurt. I learned not open “the door” to new people, because I knew eventually I will have to leave again and they will forget me. I am much better staying to myself, because I know that the choice of opening the door to the new world, is not for me.